


Dead

by DustyAttic



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Character "death", F/M, Pre-Relationship, Scene fill-in, crossroads of destiny, deals with grief in a very serious way, gaang friendship, it's aang's lightening strike though so it doesn't really count, very emotional
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-09 23:46:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17414852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DustyAttic/pseuds/DustyAttic
Summary: Aang is struck by lightening in The Crossroads of Destiny, and the next we see of him is him on Appa's back with the full Gaang. What happened between Katara carrying him out of the catacombs and her reviving him?This fic takes a look at Aang's "death" through the eyes of Katara, Sokka and Toph.





	Dead

**Author's Note:**

> I just watched crossroads with my parents and, for the first time, I really thought about the emotional damage Aang's "death" would do on the Gaang, who love this boy not only as the avatar but as their family. I wanted to write out my thoughts about their individual reactions to seeing him dead, and I hope I did the show some justice. Thank you to anyone who's reading this.

Aang is dead.

Katara knows this as she holds him in her arms, his body twitching, clothes smoking, eyes shut. She knows this as she looks up at the men lying unconscious around her, at the green shimmering crystals, at Zuko. She knows this as Iroh bursts into the cave and tells her to leave, to get away from this place where all the world’s hope was shattered, and she knows this as she bends a pillar of water and carries Aang up, up to the real world, where he will still be dead. She knows this as she feels his body stop twitching. She knows this as his eyes stay shut. She knows this as she gets to the surface and holds him in her lap and trembles with a sick sort of grief. She knows this like she knows her own soul. Aang is dead. She is holding him in her arms, and he is dead. 

 

Sokka and Toph, along with the Earth King, are running towards them. “Katara!” Sokka calls as he sees her emerge with Aang and kneel and lower her head. “Kata-”

Aang is not moving. Sokka sees this, now, as Katara shakes over him. He stops running, stops breathing. Aang is not moving. 

“Sokka?” Toph asks, stopping beside him. She feels more blind than usual, and afraid of the dread that has suddenly permeated the air. “What’s going on?” She can feel that Katara is up ahead, and that she is holding something. Something human-like, something thin and frail and familiar. “Is that Aang?” Katara’s pulse races through the ground to meet Toph, but it is alone. “There’s only one heartbeat,” she says, panic creeping into her voice. “Sokka, there’s only one-”

Sokka at once grabs her hand and is pulling her towards Katara, pulling her towards the thing that she hopes desperately is not Aang. 

Katara is sobbing with such a brokenhearted horror that it chills Sokka to the bone, makes him pray to spirits he has no faith in. As they get closer he slides to his knees, letting go of Toph, reaching for the small, limp body that he has grown to love so much. “Is he-” 

“Don’t touch him!” Katara shouts, pushing herself backwards with her foot, holding Aang tightly, eyes feral and devastated in a way that Sokka has not seen for a long, long time. He looks between his little sister and the boy who has become his little brother. Aang is not moving.

There is only one heartbeat. Toph sinks to the ground and presses both hands to the dirt, desperate to find even the slightest trace of that feather-light, annoyingly quick pulse twinkle toes had always possessed. There is nothing. 

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Katara says, hunched over Aang, voice broken and thick and ruined. She runs her thumb under his eye, shakes her head. “It’ll be okay.” He is dead and she knows this but she cannot let herself believe it or else she will lose her mind. “Everything will be okay.”

Sokka thinks he might be sick but he leans forward to reach into Aang’s tunic. “What are you doing?” Katara screeches, pulling the fragile body away from him again. 

“We need-” Sokka says, choking on his words and his tears. “We need to get Appa.”

Katara is still and untrusting for a moment but then she nods. Sokka reaches into Aang’s tunic and takes his bison whistle and blows into it, trying not to hear Katara as she whispers, “Appa’s coming, he’ll make things better, okay? He’s coming.”

Toph is still kneeling. She cannot process what is happening. Aang cannot be dead. She thinks about anything else, about the night air, about the city she can feel deep beneath the earth, about the Earth King’s bear as he paces behind her, about the hair brushing her face, about how Appa will startle her when he lands, as he always does. She suddenly wants more than anything to be on Appa’s back, where she won’t be able to feel the overwhelming stillness that is slowly leaching away at Aang’s body. She listens for the bison, focuses all her energy on listening. 

When Appa lands, he lets out a painful, terrified sound. Sokka shakes his head and lowers it into his hands. Aang is still not moving. 

“Come on, let’s get on Appa,” Katara is saying as she stands, holding Aang’s body in her arms as if he weighs nothing. She climbs the bisons side and sits on the place where his head meets his body, Aang’s place. “See?” she whispers, looking down at the still face. “It’s okay, now.”

Toph scrambles to get on Appa. She has never been so grateful for the terrifying, numbing sensation of being off the earth. 

Sokka follows more slowly, dazed. He watches as the Earth King follows them. Why? Why did they come here? What could this silly, inefficient, King of fools have to offer them that was worth more than Aang?

Appa begins to fly, less smooth than usual. Momo jumps from person to person, panicked but silent. When Katara shifts and feels the vile spirit water fall against her hip, she gasps and pulls it out from her tunic with shaking hand. “Oh,” she says, voice trembling, “oh, o- okay. Okay.” She holds it up, makes sure its still in one piece. Nothing in the world has ever been more valuable. She uncorks it, petrified by the idea that her quaking hands could drop the vile or spill its precious contents. Bending it into a disk takes all her concentration, and then she sits Aang up and leans him over her shoulder and lowers the disk into his back, over the angry, red wound, over the place where he died. The water glows brilliantly, and then fades to darkness once again. Aang does not move. 

Katara says nothing, only leans his head against her lap and lets her tears run down onto him, chest collapsing with the weight of everything she feared realized, everything she loved lost. Aang is dead. 

Sokka sits with Toph to one side of him, staring down at the boy they found in the iceberg. He can feel pain like poison move through him. Aang is dead. 

Toph curls her fists into Appa’s fur. She cannot speak, cannot think. Aang is dead. 

Aang is dead. 

 

When the airbender sighs, Katara feels a raw, animal hope rip through her and she leans him back onto Appa, stares into his sweet, still face. She silently begs the universe to please, please, please save him. She vows that she will do anything for it. 

And Aang opens his eyes. 

 

Sokka brings one hand to his mouth, shaking. He watches as Katara cradles Aang, crying into her own desperate smile. He crawls towards her, reaching out again, and this time, she doesn’t pull away. “Is- is he-”

Katara nods, sobs, holds Aang more tightly. Sokka sinks back into a sitting position, eyes wide. Thank you, he thinks to whoever did this. Thank you. 

“What?! What’s happening?!” Toph says, voice unsteady, feeling around for Sokka or Katara, for anything. She heard Katara’s gasp, felt the glow of the water against her face, heard the small sigh, but she doesn’t- she doesn’t dare hope-

At once, she is in Sokka’s arms and she can feel his heart pounding, his tears running onto her forehead. “He’s alive,” the boy breathes, “Aang’s alive, he’s alive, he’s alive.”

Toph is still for a moment, and then lowers her head into Sokka’s chest. She shuts her eyes and hugs him back, laughs in disbelief. Thinks, you really had us going there, twinkle toes, and then finally begins to cry. 

 

Aang feels Katara’s soft hair around his face, her arms holding him, Appa’s fur beneath them. Something terrible has happened, he can tell. But everything is painful and blurry and the world is slipping out from under him, so instead of asking what, he closes his eyes again and sleeps. 

Katara holds him, cherishes the feeling of his pulse against her, leans them both down against Appa. “I’m here,” she whispers, unsure if he can hear her. She looks out over Ba Sing Se, hears the Earth King say something mournful and devastating about its fall, but she can feel no grief as she looks into Aang’s sleeping face and says, again, “I’m here.”

Aang is alive.

**Author's Note:**

> comments encourage me lots<3


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